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Some of the Zanu-PF party candidates who submitted their curriculum vitaes at Davis Hall

Since Tuesday, Zanu-PF has been accepting CVs from thousands of cadres aspiring to compete in primary elections scheduled for May 5.

According to regulations issued recently, prospective candidates for all the categories, should be a registered voter, 18 years and above, fully paid-up party member and must be loyal to the revolutionary party. They must also have adequate political, economic, cultural and social knowledge of Zimbabwean affairs to enable them to contribute meaningfully to debates in their relevant portfolios. In addition, candidates should be of good standing and character in society.

Winners of the primaries will represent the party in the local government and parliamentary elections to be held concurrently with the presidential plebiscite expected by July 31. The ongoing process is a big step by the party as it moves in earnest on the road to the harmonised elections which it is favoured to win comfortably.

Information at hand shows that interest among party members from across the country is massive. This is a possible reason why the party leadership extended the deadline for the application period from yesterday to today, to give members enough time to hand in their CVs and provincial leaders enough time to sift through the thousands of resumes and proffer recommendations to the national commissariat on which cadres are suitable and which aren’t.

After today, provincial executives are mandated to submit all CVs and their recommendations to the national political commissar’s office at the party headquarters in Harare by the end of business on Monday. The applications would be looked at once again at that level, those who gained the approval of provincial structures as well as those who didn’t.

The Politburo will be the next level, for the senior party leadership to look into the applications for participation in the May 5 primaries.

The process that is underway comes after all Zanu-PF members went down to their cells countrywide on March 25 for a cell verification exercise meant to gauge the strength of the party at its very foundation and to check if they are registered as voters. From Monday to Saturday next week the commissariat department will conduct a party cell/village verification exercise.

We are seeing Zanu-PF undertaking a very painstaking but judicious and scientific analysis of its foundational strength in a manner we have not seen before. It is a new way of doing business, a way that concentrates energy on where and what really matters, the grassroots of the party. It recognises the critical fact that a party’s strength at its base is its strength at the top, its organisational and electoral strength.

Rallies and other mass mobilisation strategies will, no doubt, be rolled out later on when the official campaign period starts weeks before the elections but these only work when they ride upon a formidable foundation which is a vibrant party cell.

We urge the party to conduct the selection process and the May 5 primaries in a fair and transparent manner. The best candidates who are not only in touch with the masses but are of good social standing, must win. Winners and losers must win and lose fairly. We therefore do not expect any chicanery. A transparent selection process and primary election will yield a uncontestable outcome which will not divide the party only a few months before the crucial general election. If any disputes arise, we urge the party leadership to handle them in a responsible way and do so expeditiously to ensure that tempers don’t continue boiling over for long.

Another very interesting point to note is that contestants will be bound to campaign together, each one of them getting a platform to address the same audience on why they deserve to be voted for. This strategy should be helpful in reducing tensions and factionalism that have marred previous campaigns at crucial times.

Zanu-PF is showing its opponents how internal party democracy works. MDC-T has in recent weeks been dithering on the question of primaries while MDC has actually said that it would not stage any. The former is talking about ring-fencing the positions of selected sitting legislators while subjecting others to open contests.

This has raised much dust in the party, already rocked by a potentially damaging succession contest between Mr Nelson Chamisa and Dr Thokozani Khupe.

Some legislators are unhappy that they are being exposed to challenges while members are unhappy that they will be barred from trying their luck in constituencies of their choice. All this is happening in parties that pretend to be sworn to democracy!